The Boulevard Saint-Germain, a major street on the Left Bank, is more than three kilometers long, and crosses three arrondissements, the 5th, the 6th and the 7th. It borders the Seine river from the Palais Bourbon, which houses the French National Assembly, until the Institut du Monde Arabe, in front of the pont de Sully.

A walk along this boulevard will bring you through the posh district of French ministries and the Orsay Museum, where numerous boutiques of antiques dealers are a real delight for arts connoisseurs, the quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés, famous for its cafés and restaurants, and where intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir lead the existentialism movement  in the 1950s and 1960s,  and further east, the lively Quartier Latin (Latin Quarter) which houses many high schools and universities.